


Bows and Arrows

by PseudoMon



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Cats, Conversation, F/M, Golden Deer Route, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Tea, literally it's just these two talking and petting cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 13:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoMon/pseuds/PseudoMon
Summary: It has been two days since the Battle at Gronder Field, where the former students of the Golden Deer had to fight those they had called their friends. To everyone else, Felix seemed as angry as he has always been, but Bernadetta noticed something off about him. His grip was less strong, his eyes distracted. She wanted to help him, but she had no idea how to do it.The only thing she could do was talk to him.





	Bows and Arrows

**Author's Note:**

> I will ride and die for Felix/Bernadetta, and seeing that it's relatively a rarepair, this is just me feeding myself. This shouldn't have much spoilers beyond knowing what happens post-timeskip. It's based on my own Golden Deer playthrough, but since it only focus on these two characters, there shouldn't be too many variations?
> 
> Another way to summarize this story: 4000 words of two people I ship talking to each other, overcoming indecision and trauma, and petting cats. It's built on angst, but it's soft at heart.

It's only been two days since the Battle at Gronder Field, but Felix was already back in the training arena, hacking an slicing at innumerable straw dummies. To everyone else, he must have looked as she had always been: Angry, focused, relentless. But Bernadetta has been watching him for a while and she could tell there was something off about him. Even now, as she was huddling behind a pillar at the back, she could tell something was different. He was still angry, yes, but it was not that generalized anger he held for the world, but something more discrete. Anger at himself, maybe, which worried her. If only she could stop hiding and talk to him about it.

Felix yelled out a battle cry as he sliced yet another dummy into two. Bernadetta squeaked and huddled even lower. She was worried about him, but also he was way scarier now. No way he'd want to talk to her. This was a terrible idea. Felix could get by on his own. She could just get back to her room and stop worrying-

"Bernadetta?" Felix said. "Is that you?"

"Eeeek." She peeked from behind the column. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not spying on you. I'm just going back to-"

"Have you been there the whole time? I didn't notice."

"Oh no no. I uhh- I'm just passing by! Sorry, I'll leave now!"

"No, wait, don't! Just-" Felix grabbed her hand before she could leave. "Since you're here already, do you think you can help me train?"

"Sorry! I'll, uhh, huh?"

"I... I think I need your help."

She wasn't expecting this. With the way he was doing, she expected him to spit at her the way he yelled at everyone else, but instead there was something genuinely helpless in his voice. That terrified her.

"O-okay." Bernadetta stammered. "What can I help you with?"

"You're an archer, right? You're good with a bow."

"Well, I try? But you're just as good with it yourself. What do you need me for?"

Felix shook his head, but didn't explain. He led her across the training grounds to the indoor archery range. It was empty. The target circles hung lonely on the wall, the training bows in their racks. He picked one up, notched an arrow, aimed it at a target, and Bernadetta could immediately see what the problem was. His hands were visibly trembling. She'd noticed that his swordplay was off, but it was so much worse here.

He shot, and it missed by a long mile. Felix sighed, exasperated. It scared her somewhat, how defeated he sounded. "I just... I don't know why I can't do it anymore."

"Is this-" Bernadetta immediately regretted what she was about to say the moment it came out of her mouth, but there was no taking it back. "-since the battle at Gronder?"

Felix looked at her. It wasn't a glare, but still it made her feel like huddling in the dark and never coming out.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I shouldn't be assuming-"

"No, no. You might be right." Felix sighed. "Maybe it started then."

* * *

The Battle at Gronder Field was an ugly, bloody battle. Bernadetta had never seen such a terrible warzone. The fog and smoke, the burning hill, the endless screams and battle cries, everything made it so much harder to tell friends from foe. And the former Kingdom's army didn't even seem to care who they were killing.

Professor Byleth was a brilliant tactician as usual, but even she must not have expected the length the Kindom's army would go. Realising that there would be no hope of uniting with them in the chaos, she drove the Alliance army west, towards the Imperial soldiers. The least they could do was to not hurt each other, only their common enemy.

But the former Kingdom's army was bloodthirsty. Even after the Emperor herself had fled, taking her army with her, the Kingdom's troops still advanced without mercy. They decimated the Alliance batallions in their way, even as their own force was being destroyed. Nothing could hold them back.

Felix was not leading a batallion of his own; the professor saw very early on that he was a force to be reckoned with only when left by himself. Still, Bernie couldn't tell if it was out of mischief or kindness, but she had her come with him, told her to watch his back as he cut out a path of bodies through the enemy's army. And she did. She kept him safe, and he did the same to her. Despite his frosty attitude, Bernie could tell that in a battle, he would never let her down.

The battle went on even after the Imperial army had retreated. The Kingdom's army was relentless, and Felix responded in kind. He hacked them all to bloody pieces, the anger never leaving his eyes, until he met eye to eye with the boar prince.

Only a couple of days ago, Felix was the first to insist that Prince Dimitri was dead and no amount of speculation could convince him of otherwise. When the rumours arise that an army bearing the flag of Blaiddyd were coming, he was the first to dismiss them. And even if he was alive, he made it clear to anyone who cared that it would make no diffence to him. He'll cut his head off himself if it come to that.

When the battle began, and scouts reported that the rumours were true, that it was the prince himself leading the third army, Felix did not so much as flinch. But Bernadetta was there with him when they saw the coming army and found the prince leading the battle. She was never very close to the prince, but he looked so different to who he was five years ago. The prince she knew was somewhat dignified and fragile, but this prince was wild, angry, imposing, his one eye glaring at the world ike Felix at his absolute worst.

It terrified her, and with one look at Felix's face she could tell that the emotions going through him were so much worse. His grip on his sword loosened, his attention seemed to waver, and if Bernie didn't quickly fired her arrows, he might have been sliced by a Kingdom infantry coming their way.

"Felix!" she yelled, and it was enough to snap him out of it and focus on the battle.

What happened later was too fast for Bernie to understand at the time. The boar prince was unstoppable with his Hero's Relic, a giant spear pulsing an eerie red light. He wouldn't stop his rampage for anything or anyone and the professor was right at his path. She might have died then, the spear through her chest, if it wasn't for Felix. He grabbed the bow and arrow from Bernie's hand and aimed straight for the prince's heart.

It missed, hitting his shoulder instead.

Bernie couldn't tell if Felix's aim was deliberate, or if he truly did miss, but she saw his eyes as he shot. All the anger and fury that she had ever felt from him coalesced at that exact point. For that one moment, she was utterly terrified of him, more than she had ever been scared of anything in her life.

But the moment passed quickly, and afterwards he was like a broken man, all the fire drained out of him. The wounded prince gave them one last look then changed course and slouched off to the other direction, even as his shoulder bled. Felix, however, couldn't take his eyes off him. His grip had sagged.

Bernadetta had to pull at his arm. "Felix, come on!" she had yelled. "They're retreating! We should go!"

Felix had snapped back to focus at her voice. "Yes, we should. Thank you."

Afterwards, as they regrouped and took control of the field, she had thought that he would be fine. She remembered how he had trembled, how he always looked away as they discussed their next move, but she had thought he would be fine. The battle was over. Edelgard's army was pushed back to Fort Marceus. Dimitri's army was driven off. They had won.

But then there was the news of what came after. The Kingdom's army, tattered and weakened, did not retreat. Instead they still went straight after the Imperial army. Prince Dimitri himself was leading the charge, so bent on taking Emperor Edelgard's head. But before even his retainers could catch up to him, he fell to the grounds, succumbing to his wounds, and the Imperial army took the opportunity to spear him to death. A true, ugly death now, nothing to be speculated on.

No one in the Alliance army was happy as they heard the news. Felix had kept quiet, his lips tight, his eyes fixed to the horizon. He wasn't sad. To everbody else, he was just as angry as he had always been, but Bernadetta felt something else from him. Something she couldn't quite place. It scared her, not knowing what it was that her friend was feeling.

* * *

"Just treat me like I'm a complete beginner. Like I've never held a bow before," Felix was saying.

"O-okay," Bernadetta found herself saying. She had never taught anyone how to use the bow before. Even when the professor herself asked her for some pointers, she didn't feel like she told her anything useful.

But she tried, at least, even though she felt silly doing it. She showed him how to hold the bow, how to notch the arrow, how to aim and shoot straight. He'd nodded along like a good student. When he tried to hold the bow again, and his hands still trembled, Bernadetta held them and tried to keep them steady as he aimed.

They did this over and over again, with as many varieties of holding the bow and shooting it as Bernadetta could remember. Each time Felix shoot, even with her help, his arrows were always flung away from the target. The closest arrow reached the very edge of the target plank, but then slid off to the wall behind it.

Bernie could feel a slow anger boiling inside of Felix, but he never let any of it out. After who knows how many tries, he just sighed in disgust.

"This is stupid," Felix said. The inflection in his voice was enough to make Bernie run for the hills, but she stood her grounds. "No, this is beyond stupid," Felix kept saying. "This is _ridiculous_. What's going on with me today?"

"Umm. Maybe you just need a break?" Bernie said. "We can, maybe get something to eat? Take a walk outside? Maybe get some tea?"

Felix ignored her. He threw the training bow to the ground and pulled out one of the swords he always wore on his belt. With the loudest, most terrifying battle cry Bernie had ever heard, he ran and sliced the target he'd been trying so hard to shoot, cleaving it clean in two.

"Fe-Felix, stop it!" Without thinking, Bernie swiped the sword right off his hand. She swiped the other sword still hanging on his belt too, for good measure.

He seemed angry at first, and Bernadetta was scared he was going to direct that anger at her, but then he saw the terrified look in her face and his anger dissipated. "Bernadetta? I'm... I'm sorry you had to see that."

Bernie said nothing. She pulled the swords closer to her and backed away.

"I'm sorry, really." He smiled then, or tried to smile, his anger still shimmering underneath. "Heh, you're still really good at taking my swords away, huh? Can I have them back?"

"N-not until you tell me what's wrong!"

"What do you mean what's wrong? I just can't shoot straight today, that's all!"

"No, no that's not all, at all!" Bernie said. "I know it was because of that battle. I was there with you, you know! You don't have to hide it!" Something flashed in Bernie's memory. The face Felix had made as he aimed for the prince's heart. It made her want to run back and hide in her room, but it's too late now. "I... I'm not giving your swords back until… until we figure it out!"

Felix was quiet for a moment. "Alright," he said, like a storm passing. "Yes. There is something wrong with me. I just don't know how to explain it."

"Umm. Well, we should talk about it, then." Bernie stammered. "Do you want to take a walk outside? Find some cats? Good weather for it, I think."

He didn't smile, didn't say a word. But Felix took her hand when Bernie offered it.

* * *

The weather _was_ good that day. The sun was shining just enough to break through the clouds. The sky still retained that reddish tinge, polluted by the fires of war, but Bernadetta had accepted it as it was. It was still the same sky they always were under.

They walked all the way down to the lake before Bernie realised Felix was still holding her hand. His grip was strong, not a hint of hesitation in it.

A cat meowed as they got closer to the lake, a small thing with black and white fur. Felix let go of her hand, crouched down, and pat the cat. "Hey, you," he said. It purred.

"Ooh, that cat seems to like you," Bernie said.

"Yeah, he's always like this when I pass by." The cat stretched as he stroke behind its ear. "It's all your fault, you know."

"Huh? How is it my fault?"

"Remember that time you got me to feed the cats with you? Now this one thinks I always have treats for him. I never do."

"Hee hee... Or maybe he just likes you petting him."

"Hmm. Maybe."

Bernadetta crouched down and joined Felix in petting the cat. It seemed happier to have two hands on its back.

"What a nasty little ball of fur," Felix said.

"Aww. Don't be mean."

Bernie glanced at him. He was playful as he said it, or as playful as Bernie knew Felix could be, but he still wasn't smiling. It used to be easier to make him smile when they were looking for cats, but she hadn't once seen a gunuine smile from him since the battle two days ago.

"Felix, do you think you can-" Bernie took a deep breath. Her mouth was running faster than her brain could stop it, "-talk about the battle now?"

Felix didn't say anything for a while. He held the cat up on his lap, but it just walked back down to the pavement. "Maybe," he said, finally.

"I- umm," Bernie could feel panic rising in her chest, but there's no backing down now. "I know you did the right thing! You saved the professor's life, you know!"

Felix was quiet. "Yes, I think I did, but still." Felix got up, leaving the cat to stroke its head at this hoes. "I made the decision long ago! It's not supposed to bother me anymore!"

"Huh? What decision?"

"The decision to come here!" He tried to move his foot away, but still the cat followed it. "I left the Kingdom knowing I'll never go back. There was no future there. Not after the Emperor's army took the capital. Not since they killed the boar prince." He went quiet again. Slowly, he lifted the cat up until they were eye to eye. "But I guess he wasn't dead after all."

"Did you, umm..." Bernadetta felt the panic rising again. She felt stupid, stupid, stupid. She wanted to help Felix but she didn't know the first thing about his situation.

"I don't regret coming here," Felix said sharply. For a second it almost seemed like he was going to throw the cat behind him, which almost gave Bernie a heart attack, but then he just put it up to his shoulder. It clawed at his thick coat, but seemed to be happy to be up there, somehow. "Not for a second do I regret coming here," he continued. "The Empire needs to be stopped and I believe Professor Byleth will be the one to do it. To that end, I will be her blade, but..."

Bernadetta walked closer. She tiptoed and pat the small cat on his shoulder. It purred. "It must be hard, fighting your friend like that."

"Friend. Right. He _was_ a friend." Felix sighed. "There shouldn't be friends on that battlefield. He should've been dead long ago."

Felix turned around to face her. He picked the cat up from his shoulder, getting its claws off his coat, and half-threw, half-handed it to Bernie. "Here. You want to have the cat, right?"

"Ahh!" Bernie grabbed it and hugged it. It somehow found a comfortable position in her arms. "He can be our cat. He likes you."

Felix didn't smile, but he reached out and pet the cat still. It purred.

"Umm, I think-" Bernadetta felt the panic rising again. She pushed it down. "A lot of really bad things happen in wars. Sometimes we just have to do things that hurt us, or our friends, because we something to fight for." _What was she saying? What are you doing, Bernie? Fishing around for pretty words? This isn't one of your stories._ "You saved the professor's life. I think that's worth fighting for..."

"And I killed my friend to do it," Felix said, sadly. He let go of the cat and looked away.

"You…you didn't kill him! You just… got him wounded..."

"Well, that wound got him killed!"

Half panicking, Bernie clutched the cat tighter in her arms. It meowed uncomfortably, struggled, and fell to the ground. Felix turned around just in time to saw it run away and up a crate in the corner. Regret flashed in his eyes.

"Ah… That doesn't even matter," he continued. "I _was_ trying to kill him. He _needed_ to be stopped. I lost him a long, long time ago. I already made my decision."

They watched as the cat licked itself and then walked away from their sight. Bernadetta was sad to see it go. It was good company in the middle of her panic, and she suspected it did the same for Felix. She almost didn't notice when he, too, was walking away.

"Hey, Felix, wait!" Bernie ran up until she was close enough to hold his hand. "Felix I… It's fine if you're feeling conflicted. Your choice doesn't have to be perfect. I-" She realised at the moment that it was stupid to bring it up, that her experience was completely incomparable to hism but she couldn't stop herself now. "I sometimes still think about what it'll be like if I just stay at home. If I didn't just run off like I did and escaped the Empire. I went through a lot just to be here."

Felix glanced at her, and the way he looked made Bernie want to run awau and shut herself in her room and never come out ever again, but she managed to say what she wanted to say, "But I'm glad I came here! And I'm glad you did too! Because otherwise, otherwise I wouldn't get to see you again..."

Felix didn't say anything for a while, but then she saw something like a smile curling in his lips. "Ah, I'm sorry, Bernadetta," he said. "I've been blowing you ears off, haven't I?"

"Umm, no, not at all! Don't apologize, I was the one who asked you to do it, after all!" Bernie's hand went to the swords she'd clipped on her belt. "You can have your swords back!"

Felix shook his head. "No, I haven't earned them." He looked away, wistfully. "I'm not as strong as you are."

"What? Oh, no no. You're really strong to me."

"Heh, I wish." He looked back at Bernie. "You ran away from home, right? All by yourself? Can you tell me how you did it?"

* * *

Bernie didn't remember how much time passed as they talked. They walked around the lake, all the way to the edges of the monastery. They pet all the cats along the way, almost absent-mindedly, as Bernie recalled what she had gone through. It was easy, in a way, as familiar as writing one of her stories. Felix nodded and grunted, but she knew he was listening.

At some point they even stopped by the table where Professor Byleth used to host tea parties and had some tea of their own. Bernie told Felix of Enbarr under Emperor Edelgard's military rule. Of her nasty father and mother and how the fragmented memories of her time at the Academy kept her going. The night she decided to leave, when she remembered the promise, she had climbed out the window, sneaked past the standing soldiers, and found her own way out to the wilderness.

"All by yourself?" Felix asked. "I came here with Sylvain and Ingrid. I can't imagine going through all that by myself."

"Oh, well, it was really scary, but I'm used to be alone, and I was trying to not get anyone to notice me. So it wasn't too bad."

She crossed the bridge to the Alliance territory under the cover of the night, one of the smaller ones away from Great Bridge. She had to trick the Imperial soldiers who were guarding it, and she remembered one of the tactics that the professor and Claude discussed, a long time ago. She started a fire with some flint and oil and a well-directed shot of an arrow.

"You what?"

"Well, umm, I can't take them all out! They all have swords and lances and all I have is my bow."

"That's amazing. I think in your place, I would have tried to take them out by myself, which would be pretty stupid."

"Oh! But you're really good at close combat though! I'm sure you'd be fine?"

She tried not to think about it much during the trip, but as she got closer to the Garreg Mach and further away from Enbarr, she started worrying that there wouldn't even be anyone there, that no one else took Claude's harebrained promise seriously. When she found the monastery bustling, and Professor Byleth herself, looking exactly like she was in her memory, Bernie had felt the most relieved she'd ever been.

"And, well, I'm a couple of days late, but I'm here! I guess that's everything?"

By that point they had walked the full length back to the training grounds. There were a couple of soldiers training, but they paid them no mind. Felix had another cat in his arms. Bernie had lost track of here he had picked this one up.

"What you've gone through..." Felix started. "It must have been a difficult choice for you."

"Ah, well. I made a promise. And it really wasn't as hard as you might think. I'm glad I don't have to see my father again."

"Your father is pretty terrible, is he?"

"He's awful." For a second Bernadetta could feel all the memory flooding in, the way he'd hit her and yell at her and tie her up. She wanted to tell Felix all of this, but whenever she tried to think of the words, they all scattered in every direction. So instead, Bernie pat the cat in Felix's arms. It purred. "I just don't want to see him again, ever."

"I'll gladly take him out. Anyone who made you feel this way deserves it."

Bernie let out a small laugh. "You can be really scary, Felix. I'm glad you're my friend and not... that I don't have to fight you."

"I..." Felix tightened his hold on the cat. "I'm glad I don't have to fight you too."

The cat meowed loudly and struggled in his grip. It jumped its way out of his hand and scuttled away. Bernie waved at it, "See you later, boy."

"You know," Felix said. "If I had... If I hadn't returned to the monastery, if I hadn't met the professor and all of our classmates here, if I had stayed and fought in the former Kingdom territory, I might have met Dimitri again. We might have been friends again. I might have joined _his_ army."

Bernie didn't think she'd like where he was going with this. "So that'll mean..."

"At Gronder Field, I might have been by his side instead of yours. Instead of trying to kill him, I might have tried to kill..."

"Felix..." Bernie noticed. Without a cat to hold, his hand was trembling again, ever so slightly. She reached for it and held it in hers. "Felix, I can't say whether what you did was right. I don't think anyone can say what any of us did was right. This war has been horrible and bad and, and sometimes I don't even know how we made it this far."

Bernie took a deep breath before continuing, "This is selfish of me, but I'm really, really glad, that you made the choice you made. That you're here, with me. That we get to spend the time to talk and have tea and- and to find cats, together. I can't- I can't say I'm worth the friendship you might have lost, I really can't. I'm just a big dumb idiot, but without you I… If I had to fight you, I don't think I'd-"

Bernie barely managed to catch her breath when Felix pulled her closer. His blue jacket was warm. His heart was beating fast underneath, but his grip was strong, so sure of himself, so different from just a moment ago. It took Bernie a second too long to realise that he was hugging her, that he cared enough about her to hug her.

"I..." she could hear Felix saying. "I don't want to have to fight you. Maybe things would be different if I had chosen differently, but I don't know if it'll be better ot worse or whatever. The only thing I'm sure of, if things were different, I wouldn't be here with you. And... I..."

He let her go, finally. He couldn't look her in the eye, but Bernie could hear the earnestness in his voice as he said, "I wouldn't want to not be here with you."

A second passed. Bernie could feel her own cheeks reddening as Felix's were doing the same. "I... what... ahh!" She unlatched the swords from her belt and handed them to him. "Here! I think you've earned these!"

"Heh, are you sure?" A smile was curling in Felix's face.

"Y-yes, I think. Umm." _Deep breath, Bernie, deep breath!_ "If you don't believe me, you can try using a bow again! I'm sure you'll do great! I'll help!"

Felix was smiling, smiling finally, which sent even more whirlwind of emotions in Bernie's head. She grabbed one of the bows without thinking and handed it to him. "Here! Try it, come on!"

"O-okay," Felix said. "But you're helping me, okay?"

Bernie's hand guided his as he notched an arrow and aimed them. Her heart was beating like a ridiculous drum, but she didn't want to curl up in her room, she wanted to be here with Felix and help him get through this. They aimed. She let him go and watched as he pulled the arrow back, his grip strong, and let it go.

The arrow stabbed through the target, not quite at its center, but it was good enough. Bernadetta will be there to help him, whatever indecision he might still have about his choices.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction in years, and none of the things I've written have ships in them. It's honestly wild how I manage to write all this down and see it finished. Wild. I remember smiling like lovestruck schoolgirl when I wrote that last part. I've forgotten how stories can be fun and self-indulgent. 
> 
> Hope you like it as much as I enjoy writing it.
> 
> This is also my first time posting in AO3 so if I messed something up please tell me?


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